A fantasy nightmare come true

Hold onto your desk chairs, arachnophobes.




Never mind Shelob or Aragog - this is a real-life supermassive spider web in Lake Tawakoni National Park, in Texas.

While you hyperventilate into a paper bag, I'll explain this monstrosity further. The web was built by a colony of millions of spiders as a hippie-style communal home and trap for prey. Normally, spiders are solitary creatures, so the discovery of the enormous web (covering several hectares of the park) has stunned scientists.

According to this article, it "emits a fetid odour, perhaps from the dead insects entwined in the silk", and "whines with the sound of countless mosquitoes and flies trapped in its folds".

Scientists are still speculating about the actual spiders and the discovery of this rare behaviour. Meanwhile, the photograph is doing the rounds on the internet, and the Park staff are desperately trying to protect the "marvel".

Eeeeuegehghegheghghhhh.